Sunshine in Deep Winter
by dance4thedead
Summary: A weeping angel encounters a peculiar woman. Written in the POV of the angel.
1. Chapter 1

There's something about the color yellow that never fails to drive me crazy. I explained the sensation many times to my brothers, yet I had never been able to move them the way she moved me every time I saw her. In retrospect, I find hard to not imagine a world in which I was more able to voice my thoughts. If only I were more a man, my thoughts would be enough to change everything that happened to her.

I remember seeing her for the time in the courtyard. She was by herself, knee deep in the snow. She was young by the standards of my brothers, but by her people she was a grown woman. There was nothing remarkable about her face, or her anything; she looked like any of her kind. Except that she was wearing a rain jacket instead of a winter coat like any sensible person should be wearing that day. I recall thinking that she must have been freezing, but she didn't seem to mind the cold. And her jacket was yellow.

I didn't understand why she wore that jacket in place of something warmer, only that there was no sun shining and in that moment she alone illuminated me. I wanted to ask her name, and her story, and why she had such poor choice in weather appropriate clothing, but I could only observe her in her yellow rain jacket from my pulpit in the snow covered square.

Because she was woman, and to her I was but a statue.

It's difficult to explain the hunger to those who aren't my kind. It's not really hunger as in withering away from lack of sustenance. It's more like sleep deprivation; withdraw doesn't make you emaciated, it makes you insane. Typically, I don't have an issue with going mildly psychotic. Paired with the proper precautions to insure I don't do anything too ethical taboo, I find relinquishing self-control quite liberating.

I wasn't the only one of my brothers to feel apathetic about the hunger. If we ever got too close to going hollow, we'd zap a couple rodents and try to get back on the straight and narrow. Sure, there were a few slip-ups here and there, but nothing so bad that we'd start a food-farm like some of our brothers up North. And none of us are interested in attracting the Englishman to town.

The woman in the yellow jacket didn't return the next day. Part of me knew she wouldn't come back my courtyard. A woman like her had places to be, and the freedom to walk around in the daylight with her friends and family. She could be countries away and I would never know.

There are no trees in my courtyard. It's old and made of stone and a mix of moss and ivy cover the faults in the masonry. In the spring there are song birds and bees that come to pollinate the honeysuckle bush. In the winter there is nothing but snow and the insects that retreat far beneath it. I don't get many humans coming my way; it's a bit of a hike to get to if you aren't accustomed to it.

That's what made the woman in the yellow jacket special.

I wouldn't call my existence lonely. My brothers and I are solitary by nature: we can't speak orally without assistance, we seldom express emotion, and we don't look at each other on fear of death. What we are, though, are the world's best listeners. One of my brothers, he would stand day and night in a cemetery to relieve what grief he could. Another traveled to the coast after a tsunami, trying to ease the sadness of the world. They sympathize with the trees and with the creatures. All of my brothers are telepathic to varying degrees; we pick up simple thoughts from crushed plants and tell them not to fear their rebirth. Humans and other intelligent beings take more concentration and practice, but I know a handful of us can do it, and even a few who can manage a conversation. Mostly though, the ones who can communicate, only practice so they would be able to get out of a jam, should they encounter the Englishman and his companions.

The Englishman was somewhat of a legend among my brothers. He's known by many names, but our word for him is descriptive of his speech, not his origin. Not much is known about him, other than that he hunts my brothers periodically and has left many of us frozen on meeting us. Once in a while, one of us would claim to have spotted him and we would make ourselves inconspicuous and pray that we'd be overlooked. Mostly though, we regarded him as a pest and not a threat. The police box though, that's a different matter. To me and my brothers, the police box was the holly grail: the end to the hunger, no need to fear going hollow. Of course, none of us were bold enough to try to snag it from him. Why pick a war with a legend?

If she saw my face behind my hands when she returned two days later, she would probably would laugh at my ghost of a smile. I bet looked ridiculous, but I was genuinely glad that she came back. She was mysterious and I was curious; those two go hand and hand, don't they?

I peered at her though my finger as she stood in the snow in her yellow jacket, her hands in her pockets. She was so still, if anyone else were there, they might have wondered which of us were made of stone. She left after an hour of doing nothing; only her boots leaving any trace of her. I knelt and touched the outline of her foot prints, missing her already. That's when it hit me, mind flooding with a realization that should have occurred to me a long while ago.

The woman in the yellow jacket had been crying tears into the snow the entire time and I had been too struck by her to notice.

For my brothers and me, there isn't an equivalent reaction we experience to crying. It's not uncommon for us to keep our eyes open for extend periods of time, especially when we are being watched, which of course renders us motionless. We do experience sadness, as well as pain, and anger, and fear. We are afraid of the Englishman, and of his wrath should he want revenge for what some of our brothers from the North did to his friends. We are afraid of being locked into our own bodies, unable to move for eternity should we look another brother in the eyes. And above all, we are afraid of going hollow.

One of my brothers came to visit me that night. Word had gotten around that there was a human in my part of the woods that I hadn't zapped back, and he was there to lay dibs on her. He was one of the older ones, brothers my age and younger weren't that big on messing with humans. But my brother explained that the woman in the yellow jacket was a loner and didn't have any friends or family. He said that nobody would miss her and we wouldn't have to worry about the Englishman hunting us down because the the woman herself was a nobody.

I have three personal rules that I live by. I don't zap back more things than I need to, I never zap back things that I don't think can fend for themselves, and I never ask where my brothers send their food. I always send my animals back to the mid-twenties, back when my courtyard was a just a bunch of trees in the woods. I'd like to think that they like it better there, but I try not to kid myself too much.

I don't know why I pushed him down, or why it didn't occur to me that he was hyped up on several humans while I was clinging to sanity with my measly diet of two zapped cardinals and whatever insects had scuttled by. One moment he was on the ground and the next he was up and pinning me against the stone wall. Both his hands were on me and I knew even with my eyes pressed shut that his where wide open, daring me to look at him. I couldn't.

He struck me twice, and the weight fell from my back.

Had I been able, I would have wept.


	2. Chapter 2

The woman in the yellow jacket arrived the next day, too lost in her own world to notice my mutilated wings. She stood in my courtyard, and the two of us spent the moment pitying ourselves and trying hard to imagine a sorrow greater than what our insides felt. I didn't understand why I defended her, why I stood on principle for such a miserable, self-loathing creature. Why I thought she was different than the endless homogeneity of her people. Why I thought there was a deeper meaning in putting on a yellow rain coat on an overcast day when there wasn't one. She did it because wanted to. Because she could. And for that same reason, she stripped off her coat and lay down in the snow in just her off-white sundress and her knee high rain boats. Her breathing slowed and her eyes fluttered shut. She was no longer crying.

My brothers and I have witnessed a similar spectacle before. When I was younger, one of my brothers took me and some of the other young ones to a small farm on the outskirts of Vienna. Mind you, that was a long time ago, like before steam engines and jello shots and tooth paste that comes in a tube. We all piled into one of those picturesque barn with these gigantic red doors and wads of hay stuffed into every conceivable nook and cranny. He told us that this was a real special occasion, because what he was about to demonstrate took years for him to set up. He said that in five years time, he would come back to this barn with a human in tow to show us what happens when we zap them back in time. We crowded around, pressing our stone bodies into a ring about my brother, all while being ever so careful not to take our hands from our eyes. The air shifted, and we knew our brother had done it. We heard the frightened creature gasping for breath. We heard him muttering to himself as he started to panic. I was near the middle of the pack, and being well behaved as I was back then, I waited until I felt a touch on my shoulder before I stole a look at it.

It certainly was a man, or what was left of one, anyway. He was truly a pathetic creature to look at: his eyes wild and shot with blood, face a pummeled mess. He was withering on the dirt floor, chipped nails clawing into the dusty soil, for the bones in his legs were fractured. My brother must have had a great deal of fun with him, because gibberish garbage and moans of desperation were spewing from his lips like water from a fountain. I was intrigued, and repulsed, and … delighted. Dinner and a show never looked so good as it did in that moment.

Then the man did something I never expected. He lay back, shut his eyes, and opened his mind to me. His voice, the stream of his raw memories: the earthy smell of the fields in autumn, holidays with his parents at the beach, sex with a woman with long blond hair and freckled checks. The record of his life would be something I could never forget. I listened to his soul—and he begged for me to end him.

I, of course, did nothing to aid the man. I listened to my brother tear his body to shreds, the squelch of wet skin being pulled apart from muscle and bone. But that moment he allowed me to see into him, And I experienced a moment of true inner harmony. Of everything not really mattering and serenity washing over me. That was the only other time I had been near someone who had come to terms with their own death.

But I would not allow the woman with the yellow rain coat to go out so easily.

My knee touched the buried cobblestones as I scooped her out from the snow with one arm. My other hand swaddled her body with her discarded jacked, then gently draped my stone fingers over the thin lids of her eyes—protecting her from me. She barely had a breath, her exhales were marked by ghostly whispers of a cloud. The warmth of her body was faint, but it was heat enough to chase the ache from the stumps that protruded from my back. Her limp, bare legs knocked together as I rose to standing in the midst of my courtyard, cradling the woman like a child. Then I ran.

Over the ivy, past the moss covered crumbling brick and mortar. Down the mountainside, crashing through icicles hanging from tree branches without a second thought. Legs pumping faster than the human eye could process. Feet digging divots into unblemished snow. Faster, faster. Holding her tightly to not jostle my precious cargo. The beats of her heart growing further and further apart.

Hold on, little one. Your people are not much farther now. Hold on.


	3. Chapter 3

My brothers and I have a sort of game that we play with intelligent beings: dolphins, apes, humans. Thing is, mentally linking yourself with beasts harbors certain risks.

Forming a connection with any being is a two-way street; you bounce around in their mind for kicks, but once they figure out what you're up to, they can either evict you or set up shop in YOUR brain. Now, a fern—for instance—isn't going to have the mental capacity to pull off a hostage take over on your body. But, the higher up you go on the food chain, the more likely it becomes that the organism you're smushing synapses with is going to instinctively fight back. And having to claw your way out of mammal's consciousness is never fun … especially when you get stuck thinking in porpoise for a few weeks.

I've never intentionally tried to communicate mentally with a human. To be honest, it freaks me out. There's a sense of vulnerability that comes with it, and relinquishing self-control to chase a high is simply not my sport of choice.

The building humans used as a rally point before beginning the recreational hike to the submit of the mountain existed six miles from my courtyard. By the time the structure came into view, the woman in my arms had cold skin—even to my touch. I sprinted along the outskirts of the tree line, knowing that paralysis at this moment would be the worse thing for the creature I endeavored to save.

I deposited her on the cement steps leading to the entryway, her eyes closed, her hair spilling in the form of a mess of tendrils on to the salted pavement. I lay the yellow jacket over her figure, desperate to insulate her with what little warmth she had left in her. I never had any to begin with.

Beneath the coating of snow on the ground, I knew there to be rocks the size of one's hand, so I plunged my fist into the earth, searching for such an object.

Finding none and urgently needing to devise a method to alert the people within the building of the woman's predicament, I brought my fist down upon glass, shattering it. A noise from within confirmed that I had made my presence known.

I prepared myself to slip back into the shadows before the humans arrived, pausing only to press a finger of mine softly against the woman's cheek, willing her to survive this trial.

A musical note sounded softly in my mind. A well tempered tone, wavering with uncertainty, but building to a clear, clean frequency.

I threw up a mental barrier, startled by the sudden intrusion, before recognizing her conscience and allowing it entry.

Her thoughts brushed against my mind: confused, lost. Why save me—she thought. Sweetly bothering her pretty head with things less important than her own health.

If only she knew.

My finger left her skin and I fled from her side, chasing myself away from what must have been the only question I would never be able to provide an answer to.

Additional personnel was summoned to the building following the discovery of the woman in the yellow jacket on the porch steps. They moved with haste, loading her body on to a board, and then into a large vehicle that I assume would take her to a medical facility.

Hidden in the darkness of the coniferous trees about me, I watched on … trying to reach out to contact the her again with my mind, but knowing full well that the distance separating us remained too great.

I wanted to feel her presence, before I had to come to terms with the fact that it was far from likely that I would ever encounter her again.

The human existence is marked by brevity, in addition to an incurable desire for the moments between birth and passing to be as long as they could possibly manage. They are quite a greedy species, come to think of it. Either that, or they are filled with some form ridiculous inclination to relentlessly fight with ever fiber of their being to live, even when death seemed to be the most logical thing for them to become.

How peculiar of her to act so indifferent when faced with her mortality. And strange of me care in her stead—how remarkably human.

I moved back toward her, every stride returning me to where I belonged. Farewells hurt, not doing them properly hurt more.

I froze mid-step, and not on my own accord. A human had noticed me and was holding me locked in his gaze. From within me, panic and anxiety stirred. I experienced an ache in the cavity of my chest—terror mixed with something else—as the paralysis claimed the rest of my body.

I was incapacitated, exposed, vulnerable … with not even a yellow rain jacket to conceal the shame owned by a carved piece of rock when completely and utterly alone.

The cavity in my chest ached acutely from some unfamiliar pain, but I soon realized that I've been experiencing such a sensation from the moment I laid eyes on the woman … and that I might never be free of it.

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 **AN** : A fourth chapter will be written. As soon as it's finished, it will be posted :) Thanks for reading!


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